


Gosh, I Love Heroes

by TeddyLaCroix (ReadyPlayerZero)



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Family, Gen, everyone loves foggy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-01 16:50:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReadyPlayerZero/pseuds/TeddyLaCroix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Daredevil Kink Meme prompt <a href="http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=2220048#cmt2220048">here</a>: <i>Foggy finds a superhero in the trash and decides he has a new friend. And no, Clint you don't get a say in this.</i></p><p>In which Foggy collects superheroes (and they collect him back).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "I found him in a dumpster; can I keep him?"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [repmetsyrrah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/repmetsyrrah/gifts).



> The first part of this was meant to be a standalone mini-fill, so it follows Clint's perspective; the rest of the fic follows Foggy's.
> 
> Title from _Hawkeye #3_ [here](http://effyeahhawkeye.tumblr.com/post/25534070491/msmockingbird-mockingbird19-accurate-very), because Clint is a dork.

"Do you need help?"

With one leg up on the edge of the dumpster, bare arms covered in worse than scratches but better than gouges, and he was pretty sure another dislocated shoulder and a few cracked ribs, Clint froze. He was covered in rotten cabbage and used paper towels, he could taste blood and wasn't quite sure which of the aches on his head the flavour was coming from, and he was pretty sure that was someone's dead pet mouse sticking out of his left boot, but it wasn't like him to miss someone walking up to him even with those sorts of distractions. He was pretty positive that there'd been nobody in the alley when he started to haul himself out, but the portly brunette peering at him from three feet away with a briefcase in his hand clearly indicated otherwise.

"Okay... this looks bad," Clint began.

"Yeah, yeah it does," the brunette agreed. "Which is why I'm asking, do you need help? I've only got a bandage roll and some disinfectant in my bag, but my apartment's like three minutes away walking and my bathroom's basically a pharmacy. You look and smell pretty terrible and you're holding your arm funny, so you might have a rough time getting back to wherever you're going without a little clean-up."

As he babbled, Clint felt a trickle of amusement as a grin slowly spread across his face. He finished pulling himself over the edge of the dumpster and landed deftly on his feet. "Wow. Uh. Why are you carrying—you know, nevermind. Better question is, didn't your momma ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"

"Yes, but she'd also ground my sorry ass from her peach cobbler for the next three Christmases if she knew I'd found someone having issues and didn't try to help," the man shrugged. "And besides, this—" He gestured in Clint's and the dumpster's general direction. "This? Is not actually that weird for me. To see, not to do. Pretty sure I couldn't climb out of a dumpster like that without some major damage to my everything, but you're actually not the first superhero—"

Well, there went any hope at not being recognised.

"—I've picked up out of the literal trash. Also, there's a dead mouse sticking out of your shoe, so I think you win the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Award." Clint hesitated. "Also, I've got 190 proof Everclear."

"I'm in," Clint replied instantly. He lifted his left arm automatically to shake before— _ow, shit, fuck, no, bad idea, awww, arm!_ —offering his right instead. "I'm Clint."

The brunette shook it with a kind smile. "Foggy Nelson."

**

"So, you mentioned knowing another superhero..."

Clint and Foggy were in the latter's apartment, Foggy on the couch and Clint perched on the back of the couch. They were now plus Everclear and minus bleeding wounds, and after Clint had assured him that he didn't have a battle to run back to, decided they needed some pizza in their lives. Pizza made everything better, after all.

(This had led to storytime about pets, and Clint had fought with his fancy StarkPhone until he could locate the picture gallery to show off a hundred some odd shots of a yellow lab before Foggy told him about the adventures of his pet hermit crabs as a kid.)

Over the last two hours (and where had the time gone?), Clint had already gotten used to the man's warm, welcoming smile, boisterous laugh, and ready quips. The smile Foggy gave him now, however, made him uneasy: for all that the corners of his lips lifted up, the rest of him immediately sagged down. "Yeah... a fr—a guy I know. Kind of know. Massive hero complex, less massive sense of survival, and a penchant for dark leather and darker danger. No, I'm not going to tell you who," he added quickly.

Clint's mouth twitched. "You know I could find out pretty easily already."

"Hey, come on, at least give me the illusion of privacy!" Foggy complained.

Spreading his arms open wide, Clint gestured around at Foggy's living room, soundlessly mouthing, _Privacy_?

Foggy pointed at him. "Shut up and eat your pizza, or I won't let you have any booze next time."

That one threw the archer, and he lowered his arms, blinking. "Next time?"

Foggy blinked back. "Yeah, dude. You know where I live and that I have everything short of a surgical suite, so you're welcome anytime Hell's Kitchen bangs you up. Or, you know, if you're not banged up. My window's always open."

Clint snorted, but he couldn't help the pleased smile spreading across his face. "What, I'm good enough for the window but not the front door?"

"Based on past experiences, I just assumed you superhero types were allergic to doors."

"I'm not really a superhero," Clint protested automatically. "I'm just a guy with good aim who runs around with superheroes. No magic, no government experimentation, no mutant gene, nothing."

"Okay, no—no selling yourself short in la casa de Foggy," Foggy retorted.

"I'm not s—"

Foggy cut him off, waving a hand impatiently. "Running around with them implies you can keep up with them, and good aim kind of counts for a lot in your line of work. And hell, the fact that you go out there and do the things you do to begin with—you don't need to turn into a fireball or the Jolly Green Giant to be a superhero."

"Yeah, let's not compare me to Johnny Storm," Clint drawled, smirking. "I think I'm a little more put-together than that punk."

"I found you in a _dumpster_."

Clint winced. "Okay, you... fine! I concede defeat."

Foggy patted his knee. "Yeah, you're going to be doing that a lot, pal."


	2. Make new friends (but keep the old)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Matt; you're still Foggy's favourite.

Clint began showing up at Foggy's once or twice a week, depending on the hijinks going on in this part of the city. He pointedly used the door at first, but after a while gave up and stuck to the window (to which Foggy had graciously only said "I told you so" thrice). Sometimes he showed up while Foggy was there and other times while he wasn't, but he always made a point of leaving some sort of indication that he'd been by (a note pinned to the wall with an arrow so small and dull it was obviously not a weapon, a slice of cheesecake, a blanket laundered and folded on his couch). The only time he didn't show up was when someone else was over, although Foggy couldn't say if that was dumb luck or deliberate on Clint's part.

It took Matt a month to bring it up, one night they were on the couch with burgers and beer rather than on the bathroom floor with stitches and gauze. "So, were you going to mention that you're seeing somebody?"

Foggy fumbled his beer as he choked on the amber liquid. "Excuse me, _what_?"

Matt rolled his eyes. "I've been smelling someone new on you for weeks, Fog. It's all over your apartment, and it's a regular thing."

"Okay, one, creepy," Foggy warned, although the reprimand came without heat. "And two, I'm not allowed to have other friends now? Seriously?"

Matt frowned. "Of course you are. I just... you don't usually bring people _here_."

"And does it smell like sex?"

Colouring slightly, Matt shrugged one shoulder as he rolled his bottle in his hands. "I thought maybe you were taking it slow. You haven't been suggesting we go out as often lately, and you've been in a good mood, so..."

"Oh my god," Foggy groaned. "No, you paranoid, insecure prick. I just met a guy who reminded me of you and needed some help, so he comes over sometimes. You know, on bad days or whatever."

Tensing up, Matt instantly began giving off waves of suspicion. "Reminds you of me _how_?"

Foggy kicked at him for confirming the "paranoid, insecure prick" thing. "Well, he's a lot less paranoid than you, so you're not really that much alike," he drawled. "He just gets banged up a lot in his line of work. He's into more long-range combat than you, but he has a nasty habit of getting blown off of high places, so—"

"You made friends with _Hawkeye_?" Matt interrupted, tone horrified. "You _do_ realize he's a magnet for disaster?"

"Dude, he's almost as much of a puppy as you," Foggy protested.

"Two words: Russian mafia."

"Two words: pizza dog."

"What?"

"Nobody who rescues cute, injured dogs is a bad guy, Matt."

Matt clearly had no idea what he was talking about, but he let it go. "I'm not saying he's a bad guy! I just mean he attracts trouble."

"Pot, kettle," Foggy grumbled.

"I'm just worried—"

"And I worry about you every time you go out there by yourself!" Beer splashed out of Foggy's bottle when he gesticulated sharply, but neither man paid it any attention. "Look, you—and Clint—go out there and do your crazy ninja kung fu shit and save lives. I can't do that. It's not me, even if I were as fit as you. But much as it gives me a heart attack whenever I watch you getting chased or beaten up or stabbed or shot on the news, this is how you guys help people, and I hate hate _hate_ it, but I accept it. But in turn, _my_ way of helping people is to patch you guys up so you can do your jobs more safely. You know, slightly more whole and slightly less bleeding out of open, infected wounds or stumbling from exhaustion or stress. You've gotta let me do my thing, Matt. This is all I can offer you."

Matt gave him the sad puppy look, which, _damn it_. "I just don't want you getting tangled up in all this."

"I'm tangled up in it anyway, whether I like it or not." Matt drooped further, and Foggy deflated. He nudged his friend's knee with his own. "I mean—well, yes, I mean you, but also because we live in freaking _New York_ in a time of aliens and gods and sorcerers and mad scientists. It's crazy, but it's the spirit of our times, and I'm acclimating."

Matt fidged with his bottle before taking one last swig and setting it down on the coffee table. "You know, you don't have to stay—"

"Shut your trap, Murdock. Someone's gotta keep Nelson and Murdock running while you're gallivanting in the streets."

Foggy's words were cold and his voice was hard, but Matt had known him too long to not read the warm, soft message underneath.

 _I'm not going anywhere_.


	3. Even cold-blooded killers need cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy expands his collection.

Foggy knew his life had officially gone off the rails when he returned home one night to find a dead sexy redhead—other than Matt—curled up on his couch, an afghan around her shoulders as she sipped a cup of tea.

Luckily, between Matt and Clint, he had pretty good experience with handling his life going off the rails.

"Uh, wow. Hello. Nat, right? Make yourself at home. Do you, like, need a bandage or something?" he offered, locking the door behind himself before hanging up his jacket in the closet.

Natasha Romanoff turned to him and arched one eyebrow.

"Do you not like 'Nat'?" Foggy asked. "Sorry, that's what Clint usually calls you. Natasha? Miss Romanoff? Agent Widow?"

"I'm not here to get patched up," Natasha informed him, and _wow_ , even her tone of total unimpressed disinterest was hot.

Foggy shut the closet door and picked up his briefcase again, heading for the kitchen. "Oookay. Are you vetting me? Am I being vetted for something? I'm pretty harmless, you know. Couldn't hurt a fly. Let one go just this morning, actually," he admitted.

"Hardly harmless, Mr. Nelson of Nelson and Murdock."

Foggy scratched his head. "I don't think we've defended anyone evil recently? Unless you're here for us to represent you on a legal matter, in which case I thought Stark had an entire legal team, but hey, who am I to turn down business from a beautifully terrifying lady? Even if they're way, _way_ outside of business hours. But again, beautiful _and_ terrifying, so whatever you want!"

Natasha finally cracked a smile before looking away. She breathed in the tea for a moment before letting out a quiet breath. "I thought you'd like to know that Clint won't be around for a while."

Gut twisting, Foggy dropped his case on the counter and hurried back. She startled a bit at the sudden clatter of noise and motion, but Foggy couldn't really care. "What? Why not? Did something happen? Is he okay?" he asked. It wasn't the all-encompassing panic and terror he felt when Matt was hurt, but Foggy was a man who loved deeply when he loved at all, and every one of his friends were counted as family. And because he knew by now that Clint loved Natasha just as deeply, he added, "Are _you_ okay?"

Natasha's version of an amused look reminded Foggy of a house cat watching a gerbil in a cage.

"He's conscious and relatively capable of communicating," she replied, which, okay, did _not sound okay_. "He got blown off his stupid Sky Cycle playing tag with a Kree fighter ship. Stark caught him, but he sustained burns on one side of his body, and one of his hearing aids exploded from the heat. Blew up an eardrum bad."

Foggy hadn't known that Clint wore hearing aids, but given, well, _Matt_ , he couldn't say he was that shocked. "Jesus. He must be in a ton of pain. But he'll be all right? Does he need anything? I mean, I'm sure you guys can get him whatever he wants or needs, but if there's anything I can do... he'll recover?" he asked again.

"It was touch and go for a while," Natasha admitted. "But he's stubborn. He'll pull through. He'll be laid up in the Mansion for a while, though." Eyeing Foggy thoughtfully as he buzzed anxiously beside her, she softened and reached out to rest her fingers over his hands where they clutched the seat cushion. "Even nearly incoherent on the good drugs, he asked me to talk to you so you wouldn't worry."

"Thank you," Foggy breathed fervently, dropping his head. _Thank you for telling me the truth. Thank you for being there for him._

He nearly convulsed when fingers unexpectedly carded through his hair. Natasha stopped for a moment, but when he didn't pull away, she resumed the gesture. "It's hard to watch the people you care about tough it alone," she commented almost absently. Something—he couldn't quite say what, but _something_ about the way she said that, so disarming, made him wary. "Clint and I... we're very lucky to have each other." Foggy tensed. "And lucky to have a team." Foggy lifted his head to peer at her warily. "Daredevil doesn't have to—"

Foggy stood again, shaking more than he would have liked but making himself rise anyway. "He's not alone," he replied, gently but firmly. Matt cleaning up thugs in the streets scared him silly as it was; he couldn't begin to imagine how much worse it would be if he were fighting aliens and gods as well. "His team may not have repulsors or shields or thunder, but he's got us nonetheless. He's got _me_ ," he clarified, "and so does Clint, and by extension, so do you."

Turning away, he took a deep breath before heading for the kitchen. "Enough business. Dog Cops?"

"I'm not here to hang out with you, either," Natasha drawled, sympathetic pretense dropping like a curtain, limbs drawn back into the afghan again.

"Then hang out without me, and I can just coincidentally occupy a similar space and occasionally make cookies appear," Foggy shrugged. "You like cookies, right? Everyone likes cookies and Dog Cops, and we can taunt Clint about the episodes he missed later. I'd offer to be silent as well, but I'm pretty sure that would actually physically hurt me to attempt."

Natasha made a small, odd noise that Foggy interpreted to be her version of a smothered laugh. He decided that was probably close enough to a win.

(When Natasha left three hours later after eating most of the cookies and inventing three awful and two wonderful cocktails with him, he decided it was definitely a win.)

((When Natasha came back every few nights until Clint got better—and then continued to show up with him or alone once or twice a month—even Matt conceded that it was a home run.))


	4. Dr. Nelson, supershrink

The next addition to Foggy's puppy pack of sad supersomethings was slightly more terrifying. Not that Natasha wasn't, but at least she was terrifying _and_ beautiful _and_ familiar from Clint's stories.

This guy? Was not beautiful or familiar.

(Or, well, it was possible that he was beautiful under the smudged up raccoon eyes and dirty hair and dirty clothes and dirty stench, but Foggy didn’t _know_ that. He also didn’t want to find out, because, hello, terrifying.)

((And oh, _oh_ god, he was going to have to scrub the place top to bottom with some sort of non-scented all-natural disinfectant cleaner before Matt came over again.))

On the plus side, Foggy didn’t find him in a dumpster. On the downside, he didn’t find him on his couch, either. 

He found him in his goddamned, mother _hugging_ bed.

In the time it took Foggy to open his bedroom door, spot the prone figure, and stumble into a shocked faceplant, the guy was out the window… a window that had unfortunately not been open at the time, and was also on the fourth storey. This meant the guy was out the window in a loud, messy, and probably painful shatter of glass.

Foggy stayed over at Matt’s that night. And the night after, just for good measure. And hey, the night after that.

He did return home on the fourth night, half because Matt was fussing worriedly over him and half because three nights in a row without Daredeviling was making Matt twitchy enough that Foggy fussed worriedly back. He loved his best friend with every fiber of his being and respected the hell out of his scary ass-kicking skills, but there was only so much he could stand the sad panda face without either throttling him for the constant irrational sense of guilt or bundling him up in bubble wrap and never letting him out of his sight.

The idea of asking Clint and/or Natasha to accompany him was considered and then dismissed. He didn’t want to be a bother, and with the sort of crazy things their lives entailed, he could a handle a break-in, right? Right.

The trip home after work was uneventful, if maybe twice as long as usual. (What? He wasn’t procrastinating; he was stopping to smell the roses. Roses were good. Appreciating life was good. Appreciating being alive while he had the chance to be alive, also good.)

His apartment building was intact. That was a good sign. His neighbours weren’t acting strangely. No shadows stalked him down the corridor or in the elevator. His door looked… like a door. His living room existed.

His window was fixed.

His window was fixed, a very recently used coffee mug was abandoned beside the bathroom sink, and his first aid supplies had been raided beyond all repair.

The next morning, there was a shaky note left on a napkin on the nightstand ( _next to the bed he’d slept in_ , oh, god, how was this his _life_?). It simply read, smudged and sad and broken,: “Sorry about your window.”

The smudged, sad, and broken note changed everything.

Foggy sighed. Grabbing a pen and a notepad, he wrote back, “Put the mug in the sink next time” and left it next to the napkin.

When he came home, there was no sign of entry, but his sink was empty and the dishwasher was running.

And that was how Foggy didn’t actually meet but still somehow adopted the Winter Soldier.

(It took a confusing two months before Foggy managed to convince the Winter Soldier—Yasha, as he introduced himself—to show up while he was home. Those two months involved copious notes exchanged on various forms of scratch paper, a crash course in Cyrillic and a Russian-English dictionary for days when Yasha was extra scrambled and his English wasn’t all there, and multiple empty threats of a restraining order against a freaked out Matt.)

((Admittedly, it was a justifiable freak-out given the way Foggy’d first found Yasha, but all they usually did these days was play gin rummy and marathon _Star Trek_. It was midway through Deep Space Nine when Yasha admitted that he’d watched Hawkeye and Black Widow show up at Foggy’s stressed out and leave relaxed on numerous occasions. Apparently, Foggy was a rehab center for damaged superhumans.))

**

Foggy was used to his close friendship with Matt. He was well aware that their relationship was often misconstrued as romantic, and he’d had a number of women complain in the past that they felt like they were helping him cheat. They’d gone from being roommates to best friends to business partners; they’d shared laughter and tears and anger, stole food off of each other’s plates, crashed in the same bed when too drunk or tired to go home, and invaded each other’s personal space like the separation of atoms offended them. He knew that whatever happened and whoever else went in and out of his life, Matt would be his best friend to infinity and beyond.

That did not prepare him for the ridiculously epic, emotional, bromantic meltdown that happened when Steven Grant Rogers showed up to meet him while Yasha happened to be in the shower.

The meltdown wasn’t with Foggy, of course. In fact, he was pretty sure the two men had forgotten he was there. But how was he supposed to have known that his quiet, awkward raccoon buddy was once upon a time _the_ Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th Infantry and the Howling Commandos? 

He quietly left them to crawl weepily into each other’s chest cavities and absolutely did not hyperventilate about Captain freaking _America_ and _Sergeant Barnes_ hugging and crying on his _dirty kitchen floor seriously what the actual fuck_.

(He maybe hyperventilated a little when Captain “Please-Call-Me-Steve” America shook his hand, gave him a tearful hug, thanked him for taking care of Bucky, and offered him a lifetime friendship. But come on, _nobody_ was too straight to not be a little in love with Captain America, right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am currently on holiday until mid-June, so the fic will be on hiatus until then. :) Thanks for reading!


	5. In the land of gods and monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Lana del Rey's "Gods & Monsters."

The next two superhumans Foggy picked up weren’t actually human, but by this point nothing really surprised him anymore.

(Not that Clint or Natasha had ever surprised him much in the first place, but he had to admit that Bucky was a bit of a trip, and obviously, the Matt-as-Daredevil thing had been an outright disaster in the beginning. It went without saying that ~~Captain America~~ Steve still sort of overwhelmed him.)

Still, Foggy thought that he should _probably_ retain some sort of panic as a survival instinct when encountering new superbeings. Especially when said superbeing was a god who’d been Hel-bent on taking over the Earth.

It was just so hard to take the damn horns seriously.

“I told my buddy this for his benefit, and I’ll tell you now, horns? Are _so_ not scary,” Foggy groaned. “I mean, I know you’re crazy and powerful and can kill me with a thought, and that part is terrifying, but I can’t look at you without wanting to hang tinsel from those things.”

“ _Silence_ , Midgardian,” Loki hissed. “You overestimate the value of your trivial mortal opinions.”

“But you’re mortal, too, aren’t you?” Foggy asked, shaking his head to get some loose hair out of his eyes. As he was currently tied up in rope and suspended upside down over a vat of some sort of shimmering, silver liquid, this made his whole body swing slightly; he took a moment to thank whatever God or gods were out there that he wasn’t prone to motionsickness. “I mean, your people can die, right? The whole Ragnarok spiel? Or is the whole god-thing a human—sorry, Midgardian—idea transposed on you, and you’re actually just a super advanced race with crazy longevity? Like, how much of our myths are true?”

“I am not above cutting out your tongue and feeding it to a bilgesnipe,” Loki threatened. “You are bait; you need merely be alive to be effective, not capable of vocalization.”

Foggy huffed. “Well, I got sick of the mindless fear stage like three invasions ago, and all we’re doing now is waiting for your brother and my friends to show up. I mean, even you are _pacing_ in boredom, unless that’s just a legitimate supervillain tic.”

“I am not a _villain_ ,” Loki snapped. “I am the main character of this story, and the rightful ruler of this planet!”

“Uh. I thought you were the rightful ruler of Jotunheim?” Foggy asked, flinching only slightly when Loki whirled around to glare at him. “Come on, all I know are our Norse myths! I was serious about wanting to know what we got right and what we fucked up.”

“I can assure you that your lore understands laughably little of our history,” Loki sneered.

Foggy mused on this for a moment. “So… the [Svaðilfari](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sva%C3%B0ilfari) thing?”

It was possible he’d taken a class or three on Norse myths.

Loki stared at him with a blank look on his face (which, really, was a drastic improvement over a condescending or homicidal one) before whirling around indignantly. “Your would-be heroes approach,” he announced before storming off in a dramatic billow of robes to suit up for combat with his brother (again).

Because Foggy didn’t always know when to shut up, he couldn’t resist calling out, “Hey, not judging here! Your kinks are safe with— _ow_!”

Whatever Loki had thrown at his head dropped into the liquid below, sizzled, smoked, and disappeared.

Foggy looked down and sighed, wondering if this was how Clint felt on a regular basis. “Okay. This looks bad.”

**

When Thor lowered him safely down ten minutes later, Foggy rubbed his rope-burned wrists with a grimace. “So… is Sleipnir real?”

“Aye,” Thor confirmed, beaming proudly. “He is the mighty steed of the Allfather, Odin, a magnificent champion across the nine realms.”

“Huh.” Foggy rubbed his neck and stretched out his sore arms. “Do you ever, I don’t know, have uncle/nephew bonding time?”

Smile slipping, Thor gave him a confused look. “I know not what you mean, I’m afraid.”

“What, the Svaðilfari thing isn’t true, then?” Foggy asked, frowning. “I wonder why Loki didn’t just say so.”

“My brother held conversation with you?” Thor demanded. “Regarding Sleipnir? Did he let slip any foul intentions toward my father’s realm?”

Valiantly resisting making a joke about _foal_ intentions, Foggy shrugged. “Nah, he mostly paced around a lot while waiting for you and threatened to dismember me and feed me to a bull... bile...”

“A bilgesnipe?” Thor offered, expression falling. He sat down wearily on the nearest large chunk of rubble. “Aye, that sounds like him. I regret now that once upon a time I’d made that very threat of him quite often. None ever pleased me as much as my dear brother, but none ever vexed me as thoroughly, either. To this day, I know not why it offended him so much more than hanging him upside down to drip venom into his eyes.”

That option hitting too close to home, Foggy winced and shuddered violently. “Oh my god. Please don’t ever use that threat around Daredevil.”

“I would not,” Thor agreed, smiling tiredly.

Foggy looked around to see what everyone else was up to and found that it was mostly just clean-up time. Knowing from Clint that Thor was generally discouraged from participating in this stage of post-battle routine (something about causing more damage than clearing it), he decided his suit was already ruined anyway and sat down in the dust. “Okay. Well. I don’t have any older siblings, but I do have older cousins who grew up close to us like siblings, so can I offer some insight?”

Thor peered at him before nodding. “But of course, son of Nel!”

“My parents are actually named—you know what, it doesn’t matter.” Shaking his head, Foggy placed his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. “So, Loki’s a smart guy, right? Silver-tongued sorcerer, good with words, not so much with the big warrior image you guys like so much?”

“Aye,” Thor nodded. “He is a fine fighter as well, but favoured the arcane under our mother’s tutelage. His agile method of combat take after her sharp, quick style as well.”

“Right, okay, that’s cool. Well, not ‘cool’ when that method of combat is used against my planet, but, whatever.” Foggy wrinkled his nose. “Anyway, point: he’s a Chatty Cathy. He was probably an angsting teen who felt like he never fit in—too small, too smart for his own good, on the defensive. Whether he needed to be or _not_ ,” he added quickly as Thor frowned, clearly hurting at the idea of his brother feeling so unwanted. “That’s probably how he perceived it, that’s all I’m saying.

“So. Threatening to cut out his tongue? Keep him from speaking, defending himself, in a world where words were his best weapon?” He flashed Thor a quick grin. “As someone with older same-generation cousins who were rough and buff while I was an awkward, squishy nerd, _and_ whose job is to speak to defend people? Yeah, I can definitely see why he’d take that one personally.”

Thinking on it seriously, Thor gave a grave nod. “Aye, I understand what you are saying. This is... troubling, but helpful to know. Perhaps beginning to realise the gravity to which I have allowed my younger brother to be hurt, or unwittingly contributed to such hurt, would allow me to begin to make amends.”

 _Yeeeahhhh, I might practice restraint in getting your hopes up there_ , Foggy did not say. _Your brother is a lunatic and all the lore says he never stops being one_ , he also did not say.

“Good luck with that,” he did say. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, all right? Pretty sure Stark knows how to get a hold of me, and basically anyone in the vicinity of any sort of telecommunication system.” Because he was a _creeper_.

He didn’t say that one, either. After all, his best friend was the human polygraph.

“I shall take your offer as it is given!” God, was Thor ever _not_ enthusiastically agreeable? “And indeed, shieldbrother Stark is a master of his craft!” Craft… was one way of calling Stark’s creepily invasive ability and willingness to hack anything on the planet. “Might I be so bold as to request the honour of including your contact information within my list of comrades?”

Waitasecond.

“You… you want to add me to your buddy list?” Foggy asked, just to be clear, because _this was a god and how was this really his life_? “Uh—okay, buddy. Yeah, sure, all right? It’s not like my Catholic best friend doesn’t already know about and occasionally risk life and limb with a Norse deity, so hey, why the hell not?”

“Grand!” Extracting something from somewhere in his armour, Thor beamed at him with a blinding flash of godly teeth; Foggy actually shielded his eyes before accepting whatever it was.

A Starkphone. An alien god had a freaking _Starkphone_. This model wasn’t even out yet, either.

“If I weren’t concerned with whatever spyware Stark probably puts on this, I’d be crazy jealous right now,” Foggy sighed, opening up the contact list to include himself. He texted his own phone a message to add Thor back (which he was _not_ going to cry into Matt’s shoulder about later, because he was a grown-ass man and not at all overwhelmed by superheroes and gods, nope).

Okay. Okay, maybe just a little overwhelmed. Just a teeny, tiny, tad bit. But he’d just been kidnapped, all right? Give him a break.

**

Two days later, the first text message arrived.

/ _SON OF NEL, I WOULD SEEK YOUR COUNSEL REGARDING MY BROTHER._ /

/ **call me foggy, pls. why are you writing in all caps?** /

/ _FRIEND STARK ASSURED ME THAT IT WOULD BE AN APPROPRIATE REFLECTION OF MY CHARACTER AND ARRANGED MY DEVICE TO DO SO AUTOMATICALLY. IS IT OFFENSIVE?_ /

/ **huh. ok. well hes not wrong. what can i do for you?** /

From then on, Foggy was assured a strange text conversation with Thor at least once a week when he was on Earth. They tried the talking on the phone thing once, but it turned out that exuberant gods of thunder and booming voices did not mesh well with electronic devices.

**

Two _months_ later, Foggy got a text from an unknown number.

/ _Why in the nine realms would you introduce Thor to fanfiction, foolish mortal?_ /

Ah.

/ **clints fault** /  
/ **he emailed me some stevetony while i was having pizza with your brother and i choked** /  
/ **why** /  
/ **and why/how are you texting me** /

/ _Thanks to you, my *brother* has discovered ‘Thunderfrost’ and I am now scarred for the rest of my extremely long life._ /

/ **omg. ok. i still dislike you for kidnapping me but im actually sorry for that.** /

/ _As you should be. I will have my revenge._ /

**

Two days later, Foggy opened his inbox to find an e-mail from rulerofasgard@gmail.com with an attachment. Of course, he was smart enough not to download an unknown attachment from a ~~mostly~~ unknown sender.

(And if anybody ever accused him of sneaking a peak at the preview, he would deny it to his dying day, because explicit Daredevil fanfiction involving him was NOT something Matt was going to find out about. Ever.)

**

While Foggy still mostly talked with Thor, he was no longer surprised by the periodic text or e-mail from Loki, either. The frost giant only kidnapped him one more time, but he was more polite about knocking him out this time, and he even put cushioning in the handcuffs. Thor showed up, they did their usual homicidal brotherly rivalry song and dance, and then everyone went home more or less happy.

(Foggy was a little less happy about Loki fucking _crawling through his television set that night_ , but he only stuck around long enough to make sure that the handcuffs hadn’t done too much damage before handing him the latest chapter of a Marci/Karen fic he was working on and crawling back out again.)

((Also, Loki officially won Foggy’s unofficial “Who is the creepiest among Foggy’s superhuman contacts” contest.))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * [Crawling through television sets](http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9mm4lihDj1rrvoero1_500.jpg) and [writing slash fanfiction](http://36.media.tumblr.com/d1d41d2b8d4bf030a6c93b61fbf042e9/tumblr_n0j3ykkgtM1r95nllo1_500.png) are actually things that comic Loki does. I couldn't make this shit up.
> 
> This is actually the last installment I have planned immediately, because I'm not so much interested in writing Bruce or Tony and have no confidence in my ability to write Wanda, Pietro, any of the X-Men, or Fantastic Four. If anyone has anyone they're dying to see Foggy buddy up with, let me know! Peter Parker and Wade Wilson are on my list, but all fic writing is tabled at the moment while I sort out some real life issues. ♥
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I am not in any way hating on Thunderfrost. In fact, I actively _like_ Thunderfrost. This is just Loki's reaction in this particular take of him. Please don't ship-hate. ☺


End file.
